


On These Many Tapestries

by ParadifeLoft



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Belegost, Dor-lómin, Eregion, F/F, Female Characters, Gen, Halls of Mandos, Interpersonal dynamics, Nargothrond, Númenor, Politics, Worldbuilding, aman - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2013-09-11
Packaged: 2017-12-26 06:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 3,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadifeLoft/pseuds/ParadifeLoft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of shortfic pieces, written for a challenge that I submitted to my followers to send me fic prompts involving one or more female characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lalwen and Feanor, in Valinor

She could never quite decide whether she hated it more how he would call her by her ataressë, carelessly brushing aside the statement she had so deliberately stared down half of Tirion with - or the few times he had deigned not to, always when she had recently made a fool of herself and he seemed to wish it impressed upon her just why she had done so.

Perhaps it only made sense then, narcissistic as her half-brother was, that he would assume she’d wish to cause the same consternation in him - for he stared at her with narrowed eyes when she spoke his mother’s name with the old pronunciation.

"See, I am not so petty as you," was her only reply, with an unsmiling sidelong glance at him.

Fëanáro raised an eyebrow in that way only he could seem to manage entirely properly. “If that were true you would hardly have mentioned it.”

The next time ‘Lalwen’ slipped from his tongue though, there was less contempt and the image of her mother was not so immediately conjured, and she could have sworn she caught a glimpse of near as much surprise from Fëanáro himself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Young Aredhel and Curufin

"Your father got you a hawk?" Írisse exclaimed, gazing wide-eyed at the bird perched on her older cousin’s hand.

Curufinwe gave a small smile and lowered his arm so that the hawk was level with Írisse’s chin. It had a flattened head and feathers in a white and black pattern of wavy stripes, and it stared up at her with sharp, bright orange eyes. Írisse stared back.

“Atar and Tyelko thought I should have an animal of my own for when we all go hunting together,” Curufinwe said, and she could detect a note of pride in his voice (one that didn’t make her want to stick her tongue out or hit him, as they sometimes did). “One to keep with me when I’m older, too, instead of just the family’s birds. Since Tyelko has Huan, after all.”

The hawk shifted on Curufinwe’s arm, ruffling its sleek, black-feathered shoulders and wings, and Írisse considered the animal, reaching up cautiously to stroke its back. Curufinwe and the hawk both held still and allowed the touch.

“May I try working with her next time we go hunting together?” she asked, looking up expectantly at her cousin. Tyelkormo had let her direct Huan, a few times before, at least.

Curufinwe looked at his new hawk for a moment, with eyes just as sharp as the bird’s. “I think so,” he replied evenly then. “Once I know him well and have him perfectly trained.”

Írisse grinned.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Curufin's wife at her wedding day

The chain that Feanáro presented to her was like nothing she’d ever seen before. She’d stood in attendance at the weddings of her cousins before, and there they had received, as was usual, one jewel on a chain - beautiful and intricate, yes, but a single centerpiece.

The chain now around Hyellinde’s neck positively dripped with gems; rubies and emeralds, opals and diamonds; all different sizes, encased in gold shaped in the mingled emblems of their Houses. A weight about her shoulders borne of unsurpassed beauty and the significance of their two families, joined in her own union here. She took in a wide breath.

Only the best, the most stunning and unique of gifts for her now. The bride of the High Prince’s favourite son.

Her own family’s gift seemed lesser in comparison - still beyond traditional custom, as could here only be expected, but yet less dramatic than what she’d been given. When Hyellinde’s mother presented the chain, though, placing it over Curufinwe’s bowed head, she could see his awe for it nonetheless, in the slight smile and parted lips, widened eyes -

But even more striking was Feanáro’s gratitude, as she could only call it - for with the chain of white gold and jewels, threads of deep red and bright yellow-gold had been drawn through the metal, mimicking the pattern of embroidered cloth, as Hyellinde’s mother paid her respects to not only the marriage of her daughter and Feanáro’s son, but of the enduring ties between her own family and Feanáro’s mother, her aunt’s, lineage.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Curufin's wife and Finrod

"Curufinwe tells me you enjoy sculpture, Lord Findaráto?" Hyellinde asked, once the food had been served. She had seen her new husband’s cousin at court before, of course, but this was the first she’d spoken to him - much less sat across from him at a private dinner.

He was regal if he did not have quite enough stature to be called _tall_ ; he dressed in rich fabrics with gold-thread embroidery and gleaming jewels at his throat and elaborate hair - she had seen the way Curufinwe had touched the necklace with a finger and smirked when he arrived, and she had a certain guess that he did not always clothe himself so when merely visiting his cousin otherwise.

His hair was gold, and his skin fair with a pinker undertone than either Hyellinde’s husband or some of her mother’s cousins.

Findaráto gave a nod and a polite, even smile. “He is correct, my lady. It is a craft I partake in when not attending to matters of state or lore, and I have done some commission-work for various lords and merchants.”

"And you studied under your aunt, Curufinwe’s mother?"

Findaráto assented once more.

"Quite a stroke of luck for you then. Perhaps I should like to see your work some time. Was it purely the Princess’s skill that drew you to her tutorship? Or the subject matter - I hear she has created lovely devotional statues… and I assume that traveling with the Prince, she will have at least once seen the sea, yes?"

Findaráto looked briefly startled, but then his face settled once more into a polite mask. “Lady Nerdanel’s unsurpassed skill, chiefly,” he answered after a moment, “and her attention to detail.”

Hyellinde smiled (also politely), back at him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Míriel Þerinde, regarding Feanor

There were many events left languishing in yet-unwoven thread from the time before she was released from the Halls.

Míriel took up the work set her with no complaint; gladness in fact. She had been without such tasks for too long, and if her spirit did not yet feel fully whole, she could at least feel some joy again at beauty coming from her hands in an effort she could manage.

When the image of lamps against a darkened sky and eight swords drawn to shine amidst those lamps took shape from the threads she knotted between skillful fingers, at first there was no joy. Beauty, still, she could see in the colours, but the buoyant peace she’d swam amidst had drained away. She dropped her work, halfway through; wiped her hands against her skirt to rid them of the anguish and tragedy that had tried to seep into her fingertips from the thread she’d held.

But Míriel was not about to leave a work unfinished (she’d let sadness rule her spirit once before, and not again); and as she completed the tapestry and words sang through her fingers instead of misery, all power and persuasion, she felt another kind of joy returning.

When they’d had none of Valinor to look to in hope, when the stars grew too dim and it seemed light had gone out of the world, the Quendi had lit fires, after all.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Curufin's wife and Amarie, in Aman, post-Darkening

She kissed Hyellinde in the middle of their walk through the gardens.

They were secluded, of course, off on one of the less-used paths where large plants blocked most other people from view and some of the trees and vines grew wilder beyond the perfect confines of the perfect rows of flowers nearer to the gardens’ entrance.

Hyellinde had complained of the humid heat as they walked, and Amarie was not surprised, not with the other woman dressed in her usual heavy Noldorin skirts and bodice. She _was_ a bit surprised when Hyellinde proceeded then to remove her outer robe, leaving her arms and shoulders, save for her jewels, an entirely bare stretch of rich golden-brown skin.

Amarie had looked away for a few moments then, most of what she had been intending to say about intercity tariffs and encouraging the revival of a proper artisan goods trade in Tirion forgotten. And Hyellinde, of _course_ , must have guessed what she was thinking - she stepped up behind Amarie, touched light fingers to the back of her wrist and a couple more to the hair flowing over her shoulders.

At the touch, Amarie jumped and pulled her hand away slightly, then glanced back at her companion, who looked at her steadily with one arched eyebrow raised.

So on a whim, she turned, and quick as a bird that flitted through the sunlit trees, sprang into a kiss against Hyellinde’s lips. And this time, it was Hyellinde who gave a jerk of surprise.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rule 63!Curufin and (female) Azaghâl, as Curufin becomes established in her relationships among the dwarves

Curufinwë had brought gifts aplenty, beginning with herself, adorned resplendently with dresses and jewels she’d not seen fit to wear since the days of her grandfather’s court at Tirion, down through riches made of her own hands and those of her most favoured craftsmen, and ending with a bound volume of techniques that Fëanáro himself had developed in Aman.

She bowed low to the king, and addressed her in the Þindarin that Telchar had informed her that many of their people understood at least slightly (different from the northern dialect that she was accustomed to, but a slight loss of fluency was an acceptable price for respect).

The king greeted her in turn, her speech with a similar slight hesitance - and then spoke a few more words, of an entirely dissimilar sound and rhythm.

After a few moments of silence, though, Curufinwë pieced apart a certain phonetic similarity between one segment of the king’s speech and a word she’d been taught before. A smile, broad and truly genuine, spread across her face.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finduilas and her mother

Finduilas had spent enough time in the north, accompanying her father when he visited his own father and uncle, that even now she at times had moments of confusion where it seemed absurd that she would soon have a baby brother of her own.

Her mother had laughed when she had first mentioned it, exclaiming in surprise when she’d told her the news.

"We do not all think as your grandfather’s people do," she said, smiling and stroking Finduilas’s hair, twisting small braids in it the way she had when she was a little girl. "And how else do you think you’d be standing here, hmm?"

It was true enough. Hardly unique, too, among even the purely Noldorin families she’d grown up among in Nargothrond. And after all, despite the occasional flash of worry that the peace her uncle Finrod had excavated wouldn’t last - she _was_ excited at the prospect of a little brother.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Morwen and Nienor visiting a non-sacked Nargothrond (AU)

The Queen received them with as grand of a feast and as numerous of honours as Nargothrond could allow, with so much of its land to the north ruined in the attack and so many of its people still in mourning.

And while any Noldorin city sprawled with beauty as all the songs told, Nienor had arrived from Menegroth and Menegroth had been built by the dwarves and there was a point where opulence and wealth plateaued into a neverending landscape of exquisite carvings and perfectly-cut jewels to her eyes, raised amongst far more meager surroundings. So the grandeur paled - paled near to white like wispy clouds in comparison with the joy on her mother’s face.

Morwen Eledhwen, Lady of Dor-lómin - Nienor was sure she had not shed tears once in all the years of near-thralldom they had endured. She cried now, arms round the shoulders of a man so tall and fair and finely-arrayed that she’d thought him but another elf when she first saw him.

Her brother.

There had been rumours once, rumours that all had tried to keep from Nienor’s ears but which had reached them nonetheless, that the family of Húrin was cursed. Had someone spoken of this to her in that moment, she would have had no doubts in her spirit when she declared it a lie.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aerin and Morwen at the liberation of Dor-lómin (AU, from the same verse as the previous ficlet)

Brodda’s hall blazed, a chorus of crackling timbers and smoke billowing like drums, performing to an audience of a conquering army. The household of Aerin’s husband and captor only added to the din, clawing at boarded doors and windows, screaming agony at burns on hands and faces, and curses at the dark man who’d slain their lord and set the fire, faceless in his fearful helm.

Her lungs spasmed as she collapsed near the door - no need to get her own hands bloodied on a hopeless task - when the scream of a man next to her ended with the wet wrenching of a blade, and Aerin was hauled to her feet by a vise-grip on her wrist.

She could not put together the events in her mind, jumbled in heat and smoke and howls to make her dizzy, until the cool evening air buffeted her -

\- she was out.

Aerin searched the crowd with a dazed sort of franticness; likely missing those she should recognise but none of the men about her looked familiar. And then the crowd parted - a shining figure, wise and beautiful and powerful, the elven Queen she’d heard rumours of, surely - her eyes slid to the figure beside her, shining straw-coloured hair where the other’s was golden wheat, less ethereal, but even taller.

The taller woman strode toward some point to Aerin’s side, and Aerin followed her gaze - she embraced a woman, dark and slightly greyed with age, noble and proud and armoured as any man.

The woman moved, and then her hand was lain on Aerin’s shoulder; first salvation, and now comfort.

"My lady, she whispered, and knelt.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Silmarien and her grand-niece, Tar-Ancalime

"Quite a storied heirloom that you walked away with, even if it wasn’t the Scepter," the Queen said, voice quiet and eyes contemplative.

Silmarien raised her hand and stretched out her fingers, looking down at the green-jeweled twin serpents circling the middle one. It had become a piece whose presence she was accustomed to in the manner of many more comment items, in the centuries since her father had gifted it to her, but that did not mean she had become at all immune to considering the significance it held.

"Worth the life of kings, I’m told," she said to her great-niece, with a small amusement in her tone. "Though it’s a trade whose material effects I have no displeasure in. Power in history, as sure as in a crown."

Ancalime smiled then, thin and sharp as the rhetoric that would leave her opponents as though with a pool of their own blood at their feet and no understanding of why until they found the sliver-cuts she’d left, days before, as myriad parting gifts.

"That is one aim I had in coming here, dearest aunt," the Queen said, glancing to the ring once more. "Making use of these histories so tied to our lineage."

Silmarien was quiet and merely watched, as Ancalime paused - her speech was roundabout, but a cloud like one of her brother’s nebulae had begun to form amidst Silmarien’s thoughts, ready to bring forth stars.

"There are certain sentiments, certain people, noblemen and commoners alike… But I’m sure you’ve heard rumours and true news alike. You see, I find myself curious at the way that your ring there found itself _traded_ for its first life of a king.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A young Celebrían and her cousin Celebrimbor in Eregion

There was no “keep out” sign on the door today, and that meant Celebrimbor had either forgotten to put it up and she should refrain from bothering him anyway - or that for once he wasn’t doing something that he would mumble about the danger of as he shooed her out the door. Celebrían chose to believe it was the latter.

Pushing the door open, she ducked into the forge and felt heat envelope her, making her loose hair tickle against the bare skin of her arms. Half-finished sword-blades were cooling on a stone ledge to one side; the metal still had a faint orange glow to it. These looked like just the ordinary swords that the patrols near the mountains would use, rather than any of the legendary blades from the stories in the songs, but when Celebrían leaned closer she could still see careful engravings along the blades and in the hilts and pommels lying beside them - vines of holly leaves and berries twining underneath the warriors’ sword-hands.

Her cousin’s voice rang out, calling her name, and Celebrían jumped and turned. “What are you doing in here by yourself, you can’t just be nearly touching heated metal -” Celebrimbor scolded, hurrying over to her, ” - Oh. I forgot the door sign again. ‘Rían, that doesn’t mean you can just wander in without your mother or I…”

Celebrían twisted her mouth and tilted her head to the side when Celebrimbor looked down at her. It wasn’t like she would go sticking her hands all over the glowing-hot swords; she wasn’t a baby.

“What are you working on, anyway?” she asked him; this was a very grown-up question she’d heard other craftsmen in the city greet each other with sometimes even in place of a “how are you”. Maybe he’d let her stay if she acted more like one of the other smiths.

“Right now?” Celebrimbor replied, and glanced up for a moment, running his hands through his thick, curly mop of dark hair. “Gem-cutting. Grinding off the irregularities of the stones’ shapes to give them nice even surfaces. I have a commission from your mother - tell you what, ‘Rían? How about when I’m done, I make you a string of little jewels for your hair, to go with your circlet?”

Despite herself, Celebrían couldn’t quite keep her face from forming a smile. And when he shooed her out the door this time, after showing her the gems half-cut on the faceting machine, she found she didn’t really mind.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finduilas and Nienor (modern AU)

When Nienor walked in the door, Finduilas was lying sprawled out across the couch, identifiable mostly from the porcelain-pale calves hanging off the armrest, and the mass of curly gold hair ringing the book in front of her face like a star-burst.

"Hope you actually sent Túrin out to get the drinks for tonight and didn’t just sit with your head in a book and forget the rest of the world existed all day!" she teased, tossing the button-down she’d worn over her tank top at Finduilas by way of greeting.

Finduilas made a startled noise and pulled the oversized pile of flannel off her face - and before she could sit up properly, Nienor plopped down on the edge of the couch as well, kicking her sandals off, and leaned over her with a cheeky grin.

"For your information, I did send him," Finduilas replied, raising her eyebrows in an expression of perfect - if slightly amused - innocence.

Nienor put a finger to the tip of the other girl’s nose, still smiling, and then bent down to give her a quick kiss. She smelled like strawberries.

"Never doubted you for a moment, princess."


End file.
